The dwindling days fly past and I remain,
Though freighted by regrets and photographs.
The errors and the losses a refrain
Repeating, repeating; then someone laughs,

Returns me to the moment with a smile.
This child, with vast bright future all before,
Oblivious to older cares will while
Away the hours (seeming infinite); more

I cannot ask: the truth I cannot say.
A child knows both much more and less than I.
The moment past, the truth I cannot stay;
Regrets in hand, I wander home and sigh.

Death is a secret.  No one speaks his name.
But one day we will have to say he came.

Seems wrong
Every time
I learn how to love
find the strange things
unusually beautiful
in the smells
painting a picture
of soft soapy skin
that stinky cigarette
smoking in the air
smoldering in the dark
mysterious secrets
like wafting puffs
blowing me around
*like the curious circles
around your eyes
transporting me again
through the veins
in your hands
touching me
a beer gut laughing
merrily admiring me
after enjoying your dinner

memories they flood my mind

salt n pepper hair waving
and those lovely laugh lines
beautiful eyes of grey blue
deeply meaningful

I see every breath we took together

revealing problems
you're facing
my hands
are slowly retracing

endearing my heart
with the way
you look at me
and hear you say
how you love me
& just how much
realizing this is it
ship is in
contented & warmed
by the flames dancing
like a sultry voice
enticingly familiar  
in that safe fire...place
combustible
touched by the simplicities
accepting the way we are

as the momentum
is realized
at the precipice
when the log burning
collapses from heat
exhausted & wanting relief
when love finally
comes to fruition

then...
it is just gone
I am carried away

just like the wind

just like the wind

that took that fire out

Cherie Nolan © 2016

Tell me in a whisper
softly speaking in my ear
Let me close my eyes
and feel you really near

Hands on skin of velvet
a callous dream come true
*A juxtaposed position
this love I have with you

A poet you are too
   a poetess,
   so am I
Poetry in motion
was left in our goodbye

I see you here tomorrow
  to kiss your lips again
Pull out another paper
 * and caress you with my pen

I write about the passion
as fire burns us down
From crumpled old love letters
*left lying on the ground

Returned I am
to yesterday
gone without a sound

dipping my quill in ink
   stroking in black ashes
fanning the flames
 * as...I write
  *the night
for you again.


Cherie Nolan© 2016

He walked the streets a begger
they buried him like a king
he played a six string guitar
he wore no golden ring

She had the voice of angels
survived a valley called death
then fearing no evil
she passed every test

They wrote the songs with sunsets
they walked the line together
they stood in a ring of fire
in love they burned forever

We are not really broken
until we are broken
       and then we mend
and break again
      until our bones
become smashed
to smithereens
mapped into tiny lines
         and cracks
with some darkness
        in between
white matter, crushed
             into jigsaw pieces,
laden with blood, with spit, with silt
until the despair
that fear releases
interacts with self-blame
           and guilt
And how they weigh upon us,
these layers of pain
like heavy blankets
on our contours, in the dark
the maze of our pasts
thick upon us
as we strive to envision
                             a spark
perhaps just a tiny glowing,
at first, a barely felt
shadow of light
a glimmer, a whisper of
           knowing,
a drive urging us on
           to fight
and all of our minerals
rub off in sparkling crystals
as we brush up
against the walls
of that ever-blackened tunnel
as we stumble
and steady the fall
feeling a subterranean rumble
a shifting of perspective
as we battle questions,
spinning thick
into the whirlpool of our yearning
into molten metals, slick
We might think we can snap
                           with the ease
of a lonely brittle star
that tomorrow
could be a tribute,
              in lacerations
to the last trace
            of who we are
but it can happen, as we
sit upon, plan the edge
              of our last breath        
                       deep, subtle beats
                        of truth rise up
                to repel the scent
          of death
and, in pulses of light
                  it drifts
bends in willowy arcs
upon our soul it trips
******* light out
from the dark
and all the sharpened hooks
that kept us chained
         to the abyss
are released as
              we break free
into heaven's rolling kiss
feeling the flutters
of a new, kind breeze upon our skin
as Life's vast impulse
courses through us
     and simply wins
and the only demise
we're mourning
is the death of
          of a dormancy,
a resistance to again
receive and give
as we embrace
those little, precious instincts
that tell us to keep on
and choose
            to live